Wednesday, February 26, 2014

It's been awhile since I've added or updated any of the tutorials on Atlas Quest, and one I've wanted to add for quite some time now is how to transfer an image to a carving block with parchment paper.

And.... it's been done! If you aren't familiar with this technique, all you need is parchment paper, a little tape and an ink jet printer. Very quick and easy. *nodding* Enjoy! =)

4 comments:

I can't tell you how many times we've tried to accomplish this and failed 100% of the time. We are so frustrated it's incredible. The parchment paper we use comes in a roll from the baking supplies aisle at the grocery store and is semi-opaque, white-ish. We've never seen the 'paper bag-colored' type you have used. (Where do you get it/what brand is it?). We have an Hp Office Jet Pro 8600 and it's an Ink Jet. Putting the paper through the copier is not our problem. We've never gotten the 'wet ink' scenario at all no matter what side of the parchment we use. It either blotchy, wet dots rather than a crisp line image or absorbed into the paper like a regular print-out. HELP PLEASEDoublesaj & Old Blue

The "paper bag-colored" parchment paper I used is just regular parchment paper that's environmentally friendly. It's unbleached. "No chlorine is used in the making of our paper products, therefore no harmful byproducts are released into our environment."

Long story short--that's the natural color of parchment paper before it's been bleached, but bleached parchment paper should work just fine as well. For photos, the unbleached paper is more visible in the tutorial. =)

My printouts are blotchy, wet dots as well--that's normal. (At least for me it is!) You can't see it very well in my images since you have to zoom in *really* close to see the individual dots, but they are there.

But do change your printer settings to print in the draft mode if it's too blotchy. You only need a little bit of ink. If you try to print at a "high quality," it'll likely use too much ink and the blotching will be a much bigger problem!

Hmmm. when we got the blotchy, wet dots and carefully put it against the carving material, some of it transfered and there's too much ink and other places it doesn't transfer at all. There's always ink left on the paper in all places too. We have played with the settings as well

Californiabluefrog has offered to give us some of her old, erasable typing paper to try as she has had luck with it. We'll report our results.